Is Pinncone.com Safe or a Scam? Crucial Info Here

Pinncone.com is a deceptive website that offers to buy items at unusually discounted prices. It may appear as a discounter, or as a marketplace for warehouse liquidation items, but it is actually just a ploy to make you think about this site as a legitimate one. Upon placing an order on this site, you will most likely get nothing at all, or, at best, poor-quality or counterfeit items.

In this article, I will demonstrate the concerning indicators regarding the Pinncone.com site, the way this deception operates, and explain how to detect similar scams. This will help you to avoid similar shopping scams in future.

Pinncone.com Site – Scam Overview

As I said, Pinncone.com may initially appear like a genuine discounter or the merchant of stock liquidation items. But a swift analysis shows a troubling amount of red flags that indicate clearly about this site’s fraudulence. Unfair advertising methods, extremely low prices, lack of customer support and customer feedback – this site accomplishes the fraud bingo right away.

Pinncone.com Scam

By purchasing items on pages like Pinncone.com, it is questionable that you will obtain the goods you’ve ordered. More often, it results in one of 3 situations typical for scam sites.

Counterfeit goods. Not the worst option, as you get at least something. But as it usually happens to fake items of popular brands, the characteristic will be inferior, to say the least. Eventually, the site may notify about that somewhere deep in the item description or “about us” page, but users rarely check them thoroughly. This is a notably common case when ordering from websites that promote baubles, small electronics and stuff the like.

Wrong item. To make the transaction look real, but spend even less money on the delivered item, cheats may send a random item they have instead of your order. A worn t-shirt instead of a branded one, a dirty aluminum plate instead of a set of dishes – scammers may turn really inventive in that case.

Absolutely nothing. This is the most frequent scenario when ordering items from sites like Pinncone.com. Fraudsters take your money, promise the delivery, and then simply vanish. As scam websites are not going to exist for a long time, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating even a faint visibility of legitimacy.

Pinncone.com scam – How does it work?

As any scam, Pinncone.com runs a simple and well-proven modus operandi. It commonly consists of 3 stages, with some slight deviations from time to time.

Step 1 – Attract the Masses. Scammers post huge amounts of advertisements on online platforms, particularly preferring Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Paid ads say the same things as the websites do: 90% discounts, free delivery around the world, hurry up to get the deal.

Ads of fraudulent shops posted on different platforms

As users deem ads on the mentioned platforms benign, they do not suspect anything at this point. Ads become particularly convincing during major events that boost people’s interest in shopping, like Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. Sometimes, they disguise themselves as resellers of the liquidated stock of bankrupt retail companies.

Step 2 – Take the Money. Once individuals are on the website, scammers do their best to make the customers buy something. Impossibly good deals, additional discounts, free delivery, bright and blinking “Order Now” buttons that are just everywhere – they use every single method possible. And this works out – uninformed consumers stick to the offers and proceed to paying for the order.

Payments are done in a quirky manner. Instead of more classic options for online shopping, like Visa/MasterCard payments or PayPal, fraudsters offer using direct bank transfers, Venmo or CashApp. Thing is, the latter do not provide any refunds, regardless of the circumstances. Even when you can prove that the transaction went to swindlers, “no refunds” is a part of their policy which you agree on upon registration.

Step 3 – Vanish. Once swindlers get enough money, or – what is more likely – there are enough complaints and user reports about the site being a scam, they simply vanish. Usually, this happens at around the 2nd or 3rd week of the site activity. Once enough people know about the deceptive activity, the profits will dry up, leaving crooks with no reason to move on. Reporting the scam to the domain hosting helps take the domain down pretty quickly.

Why is Pinncone.com a Scam?

Well, we just talked about the way the hoax site operates. Now, let’s see how to understand whether the site is fraudulent without risking your money. Fortunately, fraudsters do not bother themselves with creating well-rounded disguises, so the same red flags repeat from one site to another.

1. Fake or absent reviews

Scam websites aim to exist for 1-2 weeks, so there’s no purpose (and way) to make any reputation with feedback. Obviously, even benign shopping sites will lack buyer opinions shortly after the start, since there were just a few clients yet. For that reason, this sign is not stand-alone and requires confirmation by other signs or indicators.

Definitely not generic comments generated by AI

However, once you face phishy-looking reviews that have nothing to do with what the site sells, that’s definitely not a good sign. Any obscure or nonsense reviews that may describe any item sold on the website should be taken with a grain of salt. And well, on deceptive websites you will get an entire saltcellar. Do not hesitate searching for reviews on Google – this may save your money.

2. Unbelievably high discounts/low prices

No merchants will sell goods at loss for themselves. 70%, 80%, 90% reductions are not feasible even during sales events such as the aforementioned Thanksgiving day. In some cases, fraudulent websites have the initial price low without saying anything about discounts, but they will most likely be ridiculous, like $30 for a bed or $10 for a branded leather bag. Goods may be sold for cheap, but every discount has its rational limits.

3. No customer support.

That factor distinguishes scam websites from the genuine ones, even newly established. When a site is about to rip off the customers, there’s no need to waste time on answering their questions. Check out the “About us” or “Info” page (if it is present at all) – the page will likely have no contact info at all.

Typically for fraudulent websites, the “About us” column is completely empty

When they offer a contact email, or even a phone number to contact them, there is a huge chance that these numbers and emails will be unresponsive to your request. This, or they will answer you with generic text regardless of your inquiry.

As scammers often reuse numbers and emails as “support” contacts, you can search them on Google. When they appear on a totally different site, be sure you’re facing a blatant scam.

A chain of scam sites that use the same “support email”

4. Payments via payment systems that does not support refunds

This scam indicator is complementary, as there are a lot of trustworthy services using direct bank transfers, CashApp, Venmo or similar payment systems. Each of the latter has the same pitfall I’ve already mentioned above: these methods do not suppose any refund options. And this is what attracts scammers – once you’ve sent the money, there’s no way to get the money back.

Some websites may also ask for payments in crypto, which feature even less control. While cryptocurrency payments expand their presence slowly, they still remain a beloved bay for different rascals.

5. Items’ images are sourced from another page

As frauds are unlikely to have any goods, they are not able to create unique images. Thus their option is simply to hijack these images from other websites. When rascals offer the same items on different sites, you can find same images on similarly-designed fraudulent sites. By searching for the image on Google, you can prove whether the image is unique or not.

Image duplicates on another scam site, as well as on Amazon and Walmart sites

6. Design repeats the one of a different page

This is the continuation of the stolen images I’ve just described. As frauds may parasite on the same topic again and again, they reuse the same site design under the new web-address, and voila – a new scam is ready to rock-n-roll! In some cases, reverse image search advice I’ve mentioned above may lead you to the identical copy of the original site. It allows you to unveil such frauds pretty easy, but criminals who create them never aim at cautious users.

Example of scam sites that duplicate each others’ design

Frequently Asked Questions about the Pinncone.com Scam